Richard Pokorný's villa and printing house

Two buildings, a villa and an outbuilding, both designed by the Jihlava architect and builder Vincenz Zeizinger, were built on the plot at the corner of Legionářů and Fritzova Streets in the early 1920s. The villa was designed in August 1910, and the plans for the outbuilding were drawn up in the same and in the following month. Both projects were commissioned by the Jihlava company Ahron Grünfeld & Söhne, but before the buildings were completed, they were purchased by another Jihlava businessman, Richard Pokorný, as a rough construction. Eventually, the villa was occupied by the Pokorný family and the outbuilding project was modified according to Arthur Corazza's design to include a printing house, which Richard Pokorný moved there.

When designing the multi-storey villa with a basement, Vincenz Zeizinger was probably inspired by the traditionalist English-style villas that were fashionable at the time. The house has high mansard roofs, a segmented silhouette, and a stone-lined base. The façade is embellished with subtle decorative elements, such as window sills, cornices above the windows, and a wave motif in the plaster between the ground floor and the first floor. A staircase, illuminated by large windows and uncharacteristically located at the edge of the overall layout, is incorporated into the northern façade. It leads to the living rooms on the raised ground floor and the first floor. Zeizinger designed the outbuilding, which was originally intended to house a grain store and stables, as a multi-storey building on an L-shaped floor plan, divided by large windows. Although it was a facilities building, its façade was not entirely austere – the gables were decorated with timber framing and the architect placed a turret on the ridge of the eastern wing. When comparing the plans and period photographs, it is clear that the exterior of the building, once completed, was very much in line with Zeizinger's design. Corazza proposed several changes to the interior, including a staircase leading to the first floor, and added sanitary facilities to a small extension in the corner of the building.

Pokorný’s plant for the printing and paper industries (Závod pro průmysl tiskařský a papírnický) had a long tradition. The Pokorný family opened their first printing shop in Jihlava in 1890. It focused on letterpress, lithography, die stamping, and carton making. These individual operations were also assigned separate production lines located on two floors of the building adapted by Corazza.

The villa and the printing house were completed in 1912, and in the same year, Richard Pokorný had a stone wall built in front of the villa. It was modified in 1929 in parallel with the construction of a new garage at the printing house. Richard Pokorný's son Jindřich took over the management of the company from Richard Pokorný and the Jewish Pokorný family operated the printing house until 1940, when all its property was confiscated on the basis of Nazi anti-Jewish laws. Richard Pokorný died in Terezín in 1942, but Jindřich managed to live through the war thanks to his early emigration. Shortly after February 1948, however, the printing house was nationalised, and two years later, its operation ceased. The building was affiliated to the nearby hospital, and from 1950–1955, based on plans by Cesar Grimmich of the Jihlava Stavoprojekt, it was adapted into a new children's ward. As part of this reconstruction, the former printing house was raised one floor to accommodate more rooms. The former production halls were split into smaller rooms, sanitary facilities, offices, and surgeries. The house received a uniform façade without any decorative elements.

The last significant change in the building's function took place in the 1990s. Between 1997 and 1999, it was rebuilt according to the project conceived by the architect František Laub for the needs of the State District Archive (Státní okresní archiv), which was moved there from the former Latin Grammar School (Latinské gymnázium) on Hluboká Street, which had become unsuitable. The archive is still located in the former printing house building today, while the adjacent villa houses flats and offices.

TŠ